


D.C. al Coda (the world's safest beach)

by percivaljackson



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Breaking Up & Making Up, F/F, F/M, Gen, again! like kind of, like kind of haha. this is way more depressing than i intended oops, oh yeah :) u already know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:07:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28274328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/percivaljackson/pseuds/percivaljackson
Summary: Korra meets Asami on a beach.Maybe.
Relationships: Bolin/Opal (Avatar), Korra/Asami Sato
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44





	D.C. al Coda (the world's safest beach)

**Author's Note:**

> ill give a light tw for depression and a brief mention of someone stopping taking their anti - depressants. its not discussed at length but it is mentioned. as with most things regarding my writing and mental health ive mostly just drawn on personal experience so take that as u will
> 
> this was supposed to be for the six year anniversary but its too emo for that and also i wasnt finished yet. it is barely finished now. hap holiday

//

_coda : ([ˈkoːda]) (italian for "tail", plural code) a passage that brings a piece (or a movement) to an end. technically, it is an expanded cadence. it may be as simple as a few measures, or as complex as an entire section. the instruction D.C. al Coda (de capo al coda) means to go back to the beginning, play until the phrase “to Coda” is encountered, and then skip to the section at the end of the piece._

//

Korra. 

//

Asami.

//

Korra finds herself on the beach.

It isn’t on purpose—she has no idea why she’s there in the first place, actually. She just goes until she stops, and when she stops she’s on a beach.

She’s lived in LA for years, but the beaches there are crowded and loud even in February, swarming with seagulls desperate for an unattended bag of chips. This stretch of sand a few hours north, with its bungalows and gray skies and lonely lifeguard towers, is nothing like the shores she’s become used to and everything like the shores she misses. It’s still a bit early, so that might be why it’s so empty, but she has a bone deep feeling that this is the norm here, no matter the time of day. 

Why here? It’s a good question. She doesn’t have an answer.

Her morning had been absolutely average. She went for a run and then showered, letting the hot water blast against her back for longer than usual. She made coffee and then rushed back to the bathroom as she was stepping out the door to put deodorant on. The boxes from her move last month are still stacked in the hallway, half unpacked and gathering dust. She got in her car and put her seatbelt on and began to drive, and that’s when everything turned on its head. Her usual exit came and went, and Korra’s lead foot stayed heavy on the gas. 

She drove north, flipping people the bird with gusto as she inevitably cut them off. The radio DJ blathered on about playing some Valentine’s Day love songs and Korra cranked up the first one she recognized and tapped her fingers along the wheel to the beat. She drove until there was a commercial break and then called in sick to work and then turned it up even louder. She let her mind wander, no destination in mind, but then she saw a sign for Santa Barbara and panicked. A glance at the time told her that she’d been driving for nearly an hour and a half, so she took the first exit she could to keep from ending up in fucking Seattle, or something. It leads her to a sleepy little town that’s cut in half by train tracks, where sand has found its way into every crack in the sidewalk. Korra changes into the t-shirt and hoodie she finds in the backseat and leaves her shoes in the car. She’s anxious to get her toes in the water even though she knows it’ll be freezing. Cold water makes her think of home, anyway. What was once home. Maybe what still is.

So: she finds herself on a beach. The next step is finding herself.

“Excuse me, are these yours?”

Korra turns. The first thing she sees is a pair of sandy sunglasses, held out by a hand with fingernails painted a muted pink. They’re the hyper-reflective kind, a deep cobalt, and they aren’t Korra’s. She opens her mouth to say so, but the sound gets caught in her throat as she makes eye contact with the woman who spoke.

The beach is gray. Korra sees green. “Yeah,” she lies, reaching out to take the sunglasses. “Thank you.”

The woman smiles and Korra is so so so so so _so_ fucked. “You’re welcome,” she says. “Can’t go losing those on a day like this, huh?”

The day is oppressively cloudy and dull. Korra laughs a little bit louder than the joke warrants. “Can I buy you a coffee?” she asks, more than a little mesmerized by glossy hair and a subtly athletic build. “As thanks,” she clarifies. “If you’re not busy.”

“No, I’d like that,” the woman says. “I’m Asami, by the way.”

Korra reaches out and clasps the offered hand with her own. It’s surprisingly calloused. “Asami,” she echoes, liking the way the word feels in her mouth. It sounds silly, but the moment Korra hears it she knows there’s no other name that would be right. _Asami_. “I’m Korra.” 

//

“So, I just—I talk? About her?”

“Let’s start with your most recent memories and work backwards from there, more or less.”

“Um, alright. I guess I thought I’d be starting at the beginning. Okay. I...”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m doing this because I can’t handle it, because I can. I’m not weak.”

“I don’t think any of my clients are weak.”

“No?”

“No. I just help them move on.”

“I could live with it, is what I’m saying. I’m not afraid of pain. I’m just tired.”

//

“So, are you from here?”

“Carpinteria? No,” Asami says. “My parents and I used to come up here in the summer when I was a kid, though. ‘World’s Safest Beach.’” She says the last part with finger quotes, then shrugs. “I guess I felt the call of the water today, or something.”

“World’s Safest Beach?” Korra repeats back. She’d considered stopping by her car for her shoes, but spent so long weighing the option that they would have had to walk back— _way_ too awkward. She’s comforted by the way that Asami holds her pair of flip flops in her hands even as they leave the sand and stroll towards town.

“It faces south, towards the Channel Islands,” Asami explains. “Small waves, no riptide, that sort of thing.”

“So no surfing?” Korra says, aghast. 

“Oh, you’re one of those?” Asami asks. She smiles over at Korra, frustratingly breathtaking. “There’s nothing wrong with a good boogie board.”

“If you’re seven,” Korra snarks, enjoying the back and forth they’ve easily fallen into. Walking away from the beach means they’re walking towards what Google told her are the Santa Ynez Mountains, half shrouded in fog. Korra’s glad that she snagged the hoodie from her car.

“Well, I _was_ seven,” Asami shoots back. “What about you?”

“Me? I’m twenty-seven.”

Asami snorts. “No, are you from here?”

“Alaska, actually,” Korra says. It feels like a confession. “Then I went to school down here and stuck around. Been in LA for the last five years or so.”

Asami perks up. “Where’d you go to school? UCSB?”

Korra wrinkles her nose. “Um, no. Ew.” A terrible thought occurs to her, followed by a wave of premature embarrassment: “shit, you didn’t go there, did you?” 

Asami laughs, putting her at ease. “No, you’re fine. I went to Stanford, actually.”

Korra stops. “No,” she says, horrified. It’s mostly to be funny, but a deep part of her psyche recoils at just how into a fucking Snobfarm girl she is. “This was going so well,” she laments. 

Asami, now a step ahead of her, turns and frowns. “Don’t tell me,” she groans. “You’re not—”

“—Berkeley, class of 2014,” Korra says proudly. 

Asami makes an exaggerated face of disgust, shocking Korra into a laugh. They keep walking. “If you weren’t buying me a coffee I’d be running away right now,” she says. 

Korra points at the little beach-shack restaurant that they’re coming up on, all chipped white and light blue paint and a font straight out of 1965. “This work?”

“Totally,” Asami says. “I hope they’ve still got those toy vending machines.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a quarter, a triumphant look on her face. “I came prepared.”

//

“We dated for so long, you know? Like, it was never a question of _if_ , just _when_ . I think that’s what makes it so impossible. I had all these— _we_ had all these plans. I still want them. What am I supposed to do now? What am I supposed to do? I’m not used to failing. I don’t know how to handle failing at the most important thing.”

//

Asami looks up from her newly acquired spinning top when Korra places a hot coffee down in front of her. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m going to return sunglasses more often if it means I get free coffee.”

Korra smiles. “I’ll make sure I keep dropping mine, then.”

Asami has chosen one of the outdoor tables, bleached by the sun and surrounded with flimsy plastic chairs. Their view is of a weed and gravel parking lot and then the train tracks, the main drag of the town stretching beyond the level crossing. It’s nearly noon, but there’s only two other people sitting on the outdoor deck, a few tables away from them.

“What’d you get?” Asami asks, gesturing to the tall cup in Korra’s hand.

“Oreo milkshake,” Korra answers. “I saw it on the menu and couldn’t resist.”

Asami looks at it longingly. “I forgot they had milkshakes.”

Korra’s already out of her seat. “I’ll get another spoon.”

Asami blinks, surprised, but then a smile spreads across her face. “Perfect.”

Korra delivers the flimsy plastic spoon, careful to only let her fingers touch the handle. “I mean, I’d be a criminal to keep you from a delicious oreo milkshake. It’s the best flavor.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Asami agrees. “It’s not even a contest.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Korra says, popping the top off so they can both attack it. “Chocolate and vanilla just don’t compare.”

Asami takes a scoop and knocks her spoon against Korra’s before lifting it to her mouth. Her eyes slide shut and she groans. “It’s been so long since I had a milkshake.”

“Now _that_ ,” Korra says, pointing with her spoon, “is a crime. Classic Stanford, if you ask me.”

Asami rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “You’ve got me figured out, huh?”

“Well,” Korra begins, dragging the sound out, “you’re from LA, went to Stanford, and have great milkshake opinions.” She stops her list there. “Tell me the rest.”

“How’d you know I’m from LA?”

Korra flounders for a moment. “Oh, I thought you’d said that,” she says awkwardly, racking her brain for what had made her assume.

“Well, a lucky guess then,” Asami brushes past it easily. “Stanford for school and then back to LA. Couldn’t imagine myself living anywhere else, honestly. Even here is too foggy and we’re, what, two hours north? Forget the Bay.”

“I don’t blame you for getting as far away from Stanford as possible,” Korra jokes.

Asami laughs easily, fiddling with the spinning top she’d bought. “I was very involved in student life, you know, so you’d better be careful. I’ve got plenty of school spirit.”

Korra snorts. “How do you even cheer there? ‘Go trees?’” she mocks. 

Asami pulls the milkshake closer to her. “It’s _Go Card_ and you know it.”

Korra just grins. “It’s not the same as cheering for the Bears, is all. I did like beating your team, though. Nothing hits quite the same.”

“Did you play a sport?”

“Swimming and diving,” Korra answers. She pauses and then continues, “well, until sophomore year. I hurt my back and had to stop.” She wonders if that’s all it will be now: a sentence for people that didn’t know her then. It seems impossible that it could be boiled down like that, to a bare collection of syllables, but she’s just done it. _I hurt my back and had to stop_ —nothing about that is inaccurate, necessarily, but it feels like a lie. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Asami says softly. Korra’s glad she didn’t ask—didn’t say _were you any good_ or _do you miss it_ or _what’s it like to have to watch the only thing you were ever good at be ripped away from you and be unable to do anything about it_. Talking about being twenty years old and having to start figuring out who you are from scratch isn’t really coffee date material, in her limited experience. 

“Do you still—” Asami flushes. “I mean, you seem fit. Do you swim now?” 

She does swim now, but not like she used to; she’ll never swim like that again, and that’s okay. Korra smirks a little at the way Asami’s eyes trail down to where her hoodie clings to her arms and lets the conversation move on. “I picked up boxing during rehab, actually. Got really into it my junior year and have done it ever since. I’m a trainer now, for all sorts of MMA kind of stuff.” 

Asami pauses with her mouth open, a spoon full of the milkshake frozen in midair. Slowly, she lowers it back into the cup. “Boxing,” she muses. “Does Cal have a boxing team?”

“No, but there’s a club. We competed but we also did a lot of fundraising events, you know? Like, every ten dollars someone donated was another t-shirt we had to put on. Boxing when you’re wearing fifteen t-shirts isn’t easy, but it is funny.”

“Hold on,” Asami says, “what year did you say you graduated, again?”

“2014.”

Asami squints at her. “Did you do one at Stanford? Like, with the sororities and frats?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Korra says, reaching for the milkshake while Asami’s thinking. “My junior year we definitely did one; I’m not sure about before then, though.”

“For Kappa Kappa Gamma?” Asami asks, sounding exciting. “I swear I remember the t-shirt thing.”

Korra winces. “I’m sorry, I can never remember which sorority is which. Is that, like, a party one?”

Asami snorts. “No, not really. I was president my senior year, but our philanthropy chair’s grandma got sick and I took over for a boxing event, I remember that.” She leans forward and rests her chin on top of her fist. “I’m trying to place you,” she says. “Did you raise a lot?”

Korra squints at the woman across from her, trying to think about the sea of seemingly identical faces she faced at most sorority events, from Cal to Stanford to UC Santa Cruz. She doesn’t know how to wonder how Asami doesn’t remember her without sounding like a total douchebag—she had knocked Bolin flat at least three times, and had made good on her promise to box shirtless if she raised over $300 dollars. “Yeah, I usually did,” Korra says vaguely. “Sorry, they really all run together, in the end. All the rings look the same.” 

It’s Asami’s turn to tilt her head to the side, clearly trying to think back. “This is going to drive me crazy. I can’t remember at all. I’ll ask one of my friends—his brother went to Cal. He might remember.”

Korra manages not to wince. She hopes the friend’s brother didn’t know her before her injury. Not everyone is as forgiving as Bolin. “Let me know,” she says with a slightly forced casual air. 

“I will.” Asami smiles and Korra’s stomach does something funny, something she last felt jumping off the high dive. “It’s funny how you can be connected to someone,” she says. “Almost like fate.”

//

“I guess, in the end...I guess our issue was communication. That isn’t quite right, but I don’t know how else to put it. We knew each other—we _know_ each other so well. I really think she knows me better than anyone else in the world. We knew each other so completely from the start, you know? Like, the first time we went out for coffee it was like we didn’t even have to try, we just talked for hours and it was like we’d known each other for years. Maybe that’s it. We never knew how to try.

“And if she won’t—if she...if she can’t listen, then I don’t have a choice anymore.” 

//

“I met someone.”

Bolin raises his eyebrows, his tongue flopping around in its search for the straw in his vodka cran. “ _You_ met someone,” he repeats after taking a sip. “Where the fuck did you meet someone?”

“The beach,” Korra answers a bit sheepishly.

Bolin laughs uproariously at that, drawing a few stars from other people at the bar. “Of _course_ you did,” he says. “Are they a surfer? Beach bum? Jogger?”

“None of the above,” Korra answers, picking at the label of her beer. “We just—I don’t know, we just met? It was really nice.”

Bolin pops his elbow on the bar, reaching up to rest his chin in his hand. “You just met,” he echoes, sounding unimpressed. “You’ve gotta give me something here, Korra.”

Korra shifts, smiling even as she feels a bit embarrassed. “She asked if I had dropped my sunglasses and I lied and said I had because she was really hot and then bought her a coffee,” she says in a rush.

Bolin blinks. “Oh my fucking god,” he says. “You are such a mess.”

“It went really well, so…” Korra mutters, taking a sip. “I’m seeing her again.”

“This is so weird,” Bolin says, shaking his head. “I never thought I’d see you _dating_ someone—” He stops suddenly, wincing. “Um, I mean...”

Korra scoffs. “Thanks,” she says, the word dripping in sarcasm. “I’m not hopeless, okay? We didn’t all meet our future spouses in college.”

Bolin sighs, knocking back the rest of his drink in two big gulps. “I’m sorry, really,” he apologizes, putting his empty glass down. “I was honestly just surprised you’d met someone outside of the gym. It seems like that’s all you do, these days.”

“Well, I’m trying not to,” Korra insists. “I know I’ve been, like, _aimless_ recently. I want to be more present. This feels like a good start.”

Bolin reaches an arm out and pulls her into an awkward hug side hug, yanking her half off her stool. “Love you,” he says. “I’m happy for you.”

Korra thumps his back. “Thanks.” It’s been a few weeks since they’ve hung out like this, and she can tell that Bolin’s trying.

“So, give me the deets,” Bolin insists, finally releasing Korra so she can go back to her seat. “She’s hot?”

“ _So_ hot, Bo,” Korra gushes. “It’s insane.”

Bolin orders another drink, turning away from Korra as he does. “Blonde? Brunette?” he asks, talking loudly so Korra can still hear.

“Brunette. Green eyes,” Korra says, smiling as she thinks of them. “Fit, but in a kind of subtle way. Absolutely brilliant, too, she’s some kind of engineer. She went to fuckin’ Snobfarm, but no one’s perfect, you know?”

Bolin turns to look at her, his normally hyperactive movements slow and controlled. “What?”

“I know, right? How the mighty have fallen.” Korra leans more heavily against the bar, tapping her fingers against the neck of her beer bottle. “Seriously, it was like serendipity. We’re going out next Friday.” 

Bolin’s next vodka cran gets delivered and he takes a healthy sip. “What’s her name?”

“Asami.”

Bolin fumbles the glass and spills the rest of his drink all the way down his front.

//

“Every part of our lives overlapped. It was kind of easy that way. We even had the same group of friends. I mean that. It’s not—it wasn’t like some couples who say that but then still go bowling with the boys on Fridays or whatever, like we actually had all the same friends. We both dated the same guy before we dated each other, if you can believe it. The same damn person! I dated Mako in high school and she dated him freshman year of college for, like, two weeks. Can you believe that? It didn’t even bother us for ages, too, the having the same friends thing. It was never a problem until it was.”

//

“You’re kind of quiet.”

Korra laughs aloud in response, accidentally smearing her ice cream along one cheek. “Sorry,” she says, wiping at her face, “it’s just that I don’t think anyone’s ever described me like that.”

Asami hands her the napkin she probably won’t use, seeing as she got a cup instead of a cone. “I said _kind of_ quiet,” she clarifies. “You’re a good listener, is what I mean. I feel like we've been talking about me all night.”

_I just find you interesting_ , Korra wants to say. _Everything I learn about you is so fascinating and somehow makes so much sense_. Instead, she goes with: “ask me anything, then.”

Asami hums, easily leading them away from the ice cream shop and towards the pier. “How do people usually describe you?”

Korra takes a lick of her ice cream to stall. “Goofy,” she starts out, playing it safe. “Intense. Cocky.” After another pause and a glance over at Asami, who’s watching her neutrally, she bites the bullet. “An asshole.”

Asami raises her eyebrows. “I know we haven’t known each other all that long,” she says, “but you really don’t strike me as an asshole.”

“I did a lot of growing in college. I’ve done a lot of growing recently, actually,” Korra says. 

“Any reason in particular?”

Korra gazes out over the water. It looks black at this time of night. “I don’t know,” she answers. It’s the truth. “New Years resolution, maybe? I just feel like I’ve needed to step up to the plate.” She sends a smile towards Asami, trying to make her mouth lift up more on the left the way that she’ll never admit she practices in the mirror. “I’m glad I don’t seem like an asshole.”

Asami grins back. “I wouldn’t have agreed to the second date if you had.”

“How about a third?”

They’re a good ways down the pier now, spaced halfway between two lights, and Asami stops at the question to lean against the railing. Her face glows orange as she moves a step closer. “I’d really like that,” she says. “You’re very…”

“...goofy?” Korra finishes, smiling. “Intense?”

Asami laughs lightly. “No, that’s not what I was going for.” She takes the last bite of her sorbet, scraping the tiny spoon along the bottom of the cup to get all that she can. “You’re just...captivating.”

Korra's stomach feels like a mento dropped into a Coca-cola. Her face is hot. “I could say the same about you,” she gets out. Their first date had gone from a coffee-and-milkshake to lunch and back to coffee before they finally admitted that they needed to head home in their separate cars. Asami had texted her later that same night about meeting up again, and Korra had nearly screamed in relief. _Captivating_ , Asami had said. Feeling like she’s in high school again, flirting for the first time, Korra takes a deep breath. “This might sound crazy,” she starts, strangely compelled to lay herself bare without really knowing why, “but I feel like you—and me—”

“I’m glad you said something,” Asami breathes out. “I wasn’t sure—”

“So, you feel it too?”

Asami blushes, just enough so that Korra can tell. “I—yeah,” she stutters out. “I feel it too.”

The last bits of Korra’s ice cream cone drip down onto her hand. Slowly, she leans in and presses her lips to Asami’s. Their heads tilt in perfect unison, like they’ve rehearsed it in a past life, and the bubbly feeling in Korra’s stomach settles to a level fizz. 

Asami tastes like raspberry sorbet.

//

“It wasn’t all bad, even at the end. Maybe that’s what makes it so impossible, so difficult. So much of it was perfect. For both of us.”

//

“Your place is cute.”

Korra sticks her spoon back into the tub of sorbet they’re sharing. Buying it had been part of her prep for their third date, along with finally dealing with those boxes in the hall and the photographs that were still unhung—she’s glad it’s paid off. After the milkshake in Carpinteria and the ice cream shop by the boardwalk, it had seemed like a good luck move to buy some frozen dessert. “I moved last month,” she says, “so I’m still getting used to it, but it’s growing on me.”

Asami’s tongue flicks over her spoon in a way that can’t be necessary. “I liked the bedroom a lot,” she says. 

Korra grins. “Glad the decor impressed.”

Asami, who’s leaning over Korra’s kitchen counter in only her underwear and a borrowed baggy t-shirt, gives her a lascivious look. She is, in general, unfairly distracting. So much so that Korra misses a question entirely, her eyes slipping down the long stretches of pale skin that seem to be taking up all the available space in her kitchen. 

“Sorry, what?” Korra asks, going for another bite. 

The look on Asami’s face tells her she hasn’t gotten away with anything. “I _asked_ if there was any reason for the move.”

Korra hums, the spoon still in her mouth. “Not really. My rent was going up and this place is closer to work.” 

Asami winces sympathetically. “I feel that. My place has too much space for just me. I don’t know why I thought I needed all that room.”

Korra snorts. “Well, if you want to take a look at the apartments I rejected…”

“What an offer,” Asami says, giggling. Her eyes slide to the left of Korra’s face and widen. “Oh my gosh, do you have a dog?”

Korra turns and sees that Asami has spotted Naga’s massive dog bed. It’s still in good condition, since Naga will sleep anywhere _but_ there, usually preferring to lay half on top of Korra. For exactly that reason, she’d been dropped off at Opal’s earlier that afternoon. “I do,” Korra says. “My friend’s dogsitting tonight, though. Naga isn’t great at, uh, personal space. She still thinks she’s a lap dog even though she’s almost as big as me.”

“As big as you?” Asami asks. 

Korra leans across Asami to where her phone’s plugged into the wall, quickly pulling up her long-time profile picture, one that Opal took ages ago at the beach. Naga is sitting behind Korra, her muzzle resting on top of Korra’s head. The photo’s a bit deceiving, since Korra’s slouched over in a way that’s hard to see, but it does the job of showing just how massive Naga is if Asami’s dropped jaw is anything to go by. 

“Holy _shit_.”

“She’s a goofball, I promise,” Korra says. “Total sweetheart and really well trained. She’s a trained ESA, actually, she’s just...a lot.”

“Oh my—that is the cutest photo I’ve ever seen.”

Feeling her face heat up, Korra busies herself with locking her phone and fiddling with the charging cord, since sometimes it decides to have a mind of its own and not charge unless it’s at the right angle. “That’s Naga for you. Total ham for the cam.”

Asami’s smiling at her when she straightens up again. After a moment, she reaches out and drags a thumb across Korra’s collarbone where her own baggy shirt has slipped down. Korra hisses in shock; Asami’s fingers are cold from where they’ve been keeping the carton still on the counter. “Sorry,” Asami mumbles. “You might have a hickey tomorrow.”

“Yeah, please don’t apologize for anything that’s happened tonight,” Korra insists. She leans forward and dares a gentle kiss, their lips cold against each other. 

“Not even for when I elbowed you in the chin when I was taking off my shirt?” Asami asks, not bothering to move back far enough to keep their mouths from brushing as she speaks. 

Korra kisses her again, long and slow. “Not even that,” she says.

//

“I lost my mom. I lost my dad twice. I can’t do it again. I’m never going to stop being in love with her, you know? That’s why I need to do this.”

//

“Can I tell you something?”

Asami looks up from her book, the hand she’s been using to absentmindedly twirl her hair around going still. 

Korra, from the other side of the couch, presses their feet together. She likes how Asami seems to pause everything else when she gives her attention; it makes Korra feel warm all over. “When we met,” she starts, “on the beach?”

Asami holds her place with one finger and closes her book. “Yeah?” she asks, somewhat warily.

“Those sunglasses weren’t mine,” Korra admits. “I lied.”

There’s a moment of silence between them before a grin is spreading over Asami’s face. “I know,” she says, dropping her book to the floor and maneuvering their legs so that she can settle herself on top of Korra. Naga looks up from where she’s valiantly trying to get the last bits of peanut butter out of her kong and then continues ignoring them.

“You know?” Korra repeats, confused. “How did you know?”

Asami bites her lip, still smiling widely. She presses a kiss to Korra’s nose. “I _know_ ,” she says, “because those were _my_ sunglasses.”

Korra’s mouth drops open in shock as Asami’s chest shakes against her own with quiet laughter. “You—”

“I wanted an excuse to talk to you,” Asami says. “It worked.”

Korra blinks stupidly before bursting into loud laughter. “I can’t believe you—” she manages to get out before Asami’s hand comes up to cover her mouth.

“Listen,” Asami says, trying to sound more serious and mostly failing. “A _snack_ like you on that random beach at the same time as me? No _way_ was that chance. I had to grab life by the—”

“— _stop_ , stop,” Korra intejects, moving Asami’s hand away as she continues to laugh. “I like our serendipitous romance.”

“It’s still serendipitous,” Asami insists. “We just both cheated a little. It balances out.”

//

“State your name for the record.”

“Asami Sato.”

“And the purpose of your visit, please.”

“I’m here to erase my—my...Korra. I’m here to erase Korra.”

  
  


//

The blankets on Korra’s bed are pulled up over their heads, cocooning them in an almost-fort with hot, stale air. Asami’s palm, calloused and warm, gets traced by Korra’s careful fingertips.

“I think I’ve been…” Asami hesitates for a second and then shrugs one shoulder. “There’s no way to say this that makes it sound less sad, but I think I’ve been lonely for a really long time.”

And Korra understands—she gets it like she gets years of boarding school and training until her hair never smelled like anything but chlorine and the always too brief weekends at home. She wants to say the right thing, but she’s never been so great with words. She’s a person of action, in the end, and Asami’s hand is already in her own, so she squeezes it gently and rubs her thumb across knuckles scarred from welding accidents and hopes it’s enough. 

Asami smiles at her, a tiny quirk of red lipstick that never seems to get mussed, and Korra thinks about the way her life changed in an instant, twice over. Her injury and then Asami, each as world-shattering as the other, the two poles of herself. 

"I've struggled with depression since I was a teenager," Asami admits. "There are still times when it feels impossible, but...for the most part, it's manageable. I take anti-depressants and have regular therapy and that's helped me, it really has, but the _loneliness,_ that's the hurdle I can't ever remember getting over."

Korra thinks of her injury, of the days and weeks she couldn't get out of bed and how she had learned to walk all over again only to find that getting out of bed had nothing to do with her back, after all. She pulls Asami's hand up to her mouth and kisses her knuckles gently.

“It’s funny,” Asami continues, “because I think I’ve been trying to figure out what about this is so different than anything else I’ve ever felt, and I think it’s just that.”

Korra adjusts her head on the pillow, shifts closer. “Just what?”

“I don’t feel all that lonely, anymore.” 

The phrase hits Korra in the sternum, spreads out in a warm trickle. “I’m glad,” she whispers. She wants to say something more, to thank Asami for being so open, but their perfect, isolated bubble under the covers is popped with a heavy force jumping onto the bed.

“ _Naga,”_ Korra groans. “Sorry, I thought I closed the door.”

Asami laughs, freeing them to the cold air of the bedroom and getting a faceful of Naga’s kisses in response. She deals with it better than most, pulling her hand away from Korra’s to scratch at both of Naga’s ears at the same time. “It’s fine,” she manages to say between attacks of Naga’s aggressive affection.

“I’ve never seen her react to meeting someone like she did with you,” Korra admits. “It was like watching one of those videos of people being reunited with their pets after military tours, or something.”

Asami turns to look at Korra again, grunting slightly as Naga readjusts on top of her. “Well, she’s clearly a good judge of character.”

Korra can’t even be embarrassed by the soft and affectionate smile that takes over her face. “Clearly.”

//

“When we first moved in together, we couldn’t decide which side of the bed we each wanted to sleep on. Like, we spent days switching to see if one of us liked one side more than the other.”

“Is that something you expect to be an issue after having your memory modified?”

“No, not that. It wasn’t an issue in the end because Naga—that’s our dog—she...oh.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s just...I guess she’s not our dog, really. She’s Korra’s ESA.” 

“ESA?”

“Emotional Support Animal. Korra adopted her when she was recovering from her injury. Not physically recovering, the more mental side of it. It was a really difficult time for her, in a lot of ways I don’t think I’ll ever understand. Naga’s impact was...priceless, honestly. I hadn’t thought about her in all of this. Of course she’s Korra’s.”

//

Spring hits LA earlier than it ever does in Alaska. It’s like Korra blinks and there’s suddenly flowers everywhere, the temperature pushing into the seventies and eighties and the long-awaited sunshine coming back at full force. 

This year, it’s marked by the usual springtime checklist and also Asami—Asami in cutoffs and holding her hand on ambling walks and Asami in button ups after work learning where Korra keeps the mugs in her kitchen and Asami being her _girlfriend_ and the word girlfriend feeling warm and special like Korra’s nineteen again. 

LA feels hopeful in the spring. Korra feels more settled into her skin that she has since at least the fall, maybe earlier. They hit the amount of dates when they don’t count which date it is anymore, and other numbers tick up too, like how many times Asami has kissed her or held her hand or smiled in her direction. Korra collects every little memory greedily, pouring over them when she’s alone. Her chest feels lighter but more full somehow—Korra hasn’t really dated anyone seriously since college so she doesn’t know why everything about being with Asami feels so strangely familiar. Asami feels so inevitable, from the way she cares so deeply to her sense of humor to her love of Mexican food to knowing Mako and therefore Bolin to everything else under the sun. It just feels _right_ , like Korra’s finally figured out the most important piece of the adult puzzle.

Spring is the time for new beginnings. For Korra, it seems like the possibilities are endless. 

//

“She can be _proud,_ believe me. She’ll disappear to the gym all day and come home not say a single fucking word about it, like that’s a reasonable way to deal with her emotions. It was exhausting, sometimes, but I wasn’t much better. I disappeared into my work, too. I still do.

“I think everyone thinks we’re just taking a break. I don’t know what she thinks, exactly, but...well, that’s not so important, in the end. I know her, even if I don’t know what she’s thinking. Does that make sense? Actually, she wouldn’t—I’m sorry. Sorry. Can I take a break?

//

Bolin’s reveal of his special news is spoiled the moment he sits down for brunch, an unfamiliar sparkle on his left hand catching the light as he reaches for his napkin. Korra gapes at it for a moment before screeching out a noise that she’s reluctant to admit could ever even come out of her own throat, lunging forward to grab Bolin’s hand in her own.

“Opal _proposed_?” Korra gasps.

Bolin’s grinning, a light blush on his cheeks. “Two days ago.”

“You kept this from me for _two days_?”

Bolin doesn’t stop smiling despite the scandalized tone of Korra’s voice. “We didn’t tell anyone the first day, we were busy—”

“Gross.”

“—and yesterday we kept to family, mostly.”

Korra finally lets him have his hand back, having sufficiently taken in the ring. It’s gorgeous, some kind of silvery metal twisted around itself in an intricate, knotted design. “Mostly?”

Bolin looks down at the menu. “Well, you know how massive her family is. Huan—that’s her brother—designed the ring, actually. I’m talking to him about one for Opal, too.” Korra’s own smile slips as she realizes that Bolin’s avoiding eye contact. “Opal broke and called Asami last night,” he confesses.

Korra resists the urge to laugh. “Bo, it’s fine. You can tell whoever you want, whenever you want; I’m not offended. If you had waited a week, though…”

The smile comes back in full force. “You’re the best, Korra. It’s still kind of, like—”

“—weird? Tell me about it,” Korra interjects. “I just don’t get how we’ve never met before. I’ve met, like, _all_ your friends from LA, but never Asami? Even though she’s still so close with Opal? Do you want to split some fries?”

“What? Oh, yeah, sure.” Bolin closes his menu. “I don’t know why I’m looking, I know I want pancakes. And you have met.”

Korra looks up. “No, we haven’t.” She absolutely would’ve remembered anything about Asami.

Bolin rolls his eyes. “Uh, _yeah,_ you have. At at least two of Opal’s birthday parties. It’s not my fault you got trashed and fell asleep on the bar.”

“I didn’t fall asleep on the bar,” Korra says automatically. It’s natural, after all the times she’s had to defend herself. “I was just trying to delay the puke part of puke and rally.”

Bolin holds up his hands. “Whatever you say,” he sing-songs.

“I know this brunch should be about your relationship, and I promise we’ll get back to that in a sec,” Korra says, “but isn’t it fucking insane?”

“Isn’t what insane?” Bolin asks, trying to make eye contact with a waiter.

“Me and Asami,” Korra says, resisting the urge to add in a ‘duh,’ at the end. “Like, there’s a hundred times we could’ve met, that we _should’ve_ , but instead it was total chance. It feels so…”

Bolin looks back at her, pausing in his crusade to get their orders taken. “So what?”

Korra shrugs, feeling strangely shy. “I don’t know. I just know it’s going to last.”

“ _Aw_ , Korra,” Bolin says, leaning forward to rest his chin in his palm. “That’s really cute.”

Korra blushes. “Yeah, whatever,” she says.

“I’m serious, you’re adorable.” His eyes do something strange, something that’s very un-Bolin in a way she can’t quite place, but then it clears. “Asami gushed about you last night, too.”

Korra perks up at that, odd look forgotten. “What did she say?”

Bolin mimes zipping his lips shut. 

“Oh, come _on_ —” Korra starts, but Bolin’s saved by a waiter finally materializing by their table. They place their orders quickly, and Korra rolls her eyes when Bolin takes his sweet time taking a sip of water. “Bo. Bolin.” She kicks Bolin under the table. “ _Bolin_.”

“Do you want me to tell you, or do you want me to ask you to be my groomsmaid?”

Korra blinks. “I can’t have both?”

//

“A lot of our friends assumed that we fell in love super quickly, but we didn’t. We took our time. That’s hard when you’re young, I think, when you want to rush into something exciting, but we managed. We took our time falling in love. The foundation is too sturdy. It’s not going anywhere, not without...assistance.

“I’m not really the kind of person who does casual; I never was. She’s the only person I’ve ever loved like that. I didn’t make any plans for having to try and move on. Neither did she. So, I’m stuck. I’m so stuck.”

//

After checking to make sure she’s at the right door for the third time, Korra knocks firmly three times. She sticks her phone in her pocket as she waits, hurriedly running her fingers through her hair just before the door swings open.

Asami grins at her. “Hi,” she says a little breathlessly, leaning in for a quick kiss. By the time she pulls back, Korra’s grinning too. “Welcome.” Asami steps aside and gestures her in.

Korra kicks off her shoes and nudges them with a foot so they’re aligned against the wall. “Something smells good,” she says.

“I’m glad,” Asami jokes, taking her jacket. “Cooking really isn’t my thing.”

Korra laughs lightly, following her down the hallway. “Now I really can’t wait to dig in.”

“I practiced, is what I meant,” Asami clarifies. “You found me alright? I know that exit can be a bitch.”

“Yeah, it was fine,” Korra answers, trying to take a good look around without being too snoopy. Asami’s place is spacious, and while most of the living room is taken up by a comfy looking blue sectional, the rest is a bit bare. “You were right, this place is big.”

“It’s good for Super Bowl watch parties, at least,” Asami says. “Want a drink? I’ve got beer.”

Korra turns away from the living room and walks into the kitchen, leaning her hip into a counter. “You know me so well,” she jokes. “Yeah, I’d love one.”

Asami opens the fridge to grab her one, and as she does Korra slides open a drawer, lucky fingers closing around the bottle opener. “I had to ask for advice buying this,” Asami admits, handing it over, “so I hope it’s good.”

Korra looks at the label and is grinning before she even finishes reading. “Alaskan Brewing Company,” she says. “That’s my favorite.” 

Asami perks up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Korra feels warm at the thought of Asami preparing so much for this—getting Alaskan beer, practicing cooking, wearing her hair down in soft waves that Korra wants to run her hands through so bad. She pops open the beer and takes a sip to keep herself from saying something embarrassing. “Delicious,” she confirms.

Asami smiles wide. “Perfect.” She knocks closed the drawer Korra had opened with a hip as she makes her way to the stove. “This has to simmer for a bit longer, but then we’ll be good to go.”

“Need help setting the table?”

Asami gestures towards it. “I’ve already got the napkins set up, but if you could grab the plates?”

Being a good guest was ingrained in her long ago, so Korra nods, putting her beer down and opening the cabinet above the sink. The big plates are to the left, just like she does it at home, so she takes two out and brings them to the table. “I think I’ve got the same plates as you,” she mentions. “Did you get the full IKEA set too?”

Asami laughs. “I’m kind of embarrassed that you called me out, but you just admitted to having them too, so…” She puts the lid back on whatever’s on the stove and turns to face Korra. “So,” she repeats. “We’ve got a few minutes to kill.”

Korra hums, pretending to think it over. “We could talk about our days?” she suggests.

Asami holds out a hand and pulls Korra in when she grabs it. Korra goes willingly. “We’ll talk over dinner,” Asami says, leaning in.

Korra lets herself be kissed, freeing her hands so that she can run them through Asami’s hair. It feels just as soft as she had imagined.

//

“We went to Hawaii last year. I mean, we go to the beach all the time, it’s why we ended up in LA, but we always end up vacationing to the beach, too. Korra likes the surfing, I like the sun and the relaxing. 

“It wasn’t like this was an anniversary trip, or anything. There was no occasion. She just liked doing stuff with me. Every moment she wasn’t in the water she was right by me, putting a smile on my face or napping or whatever. That kind of comfort is...I can’t even describe it. I knew that she was always thinking about how to make me happy. I still know that, I think. Korra’s pretty good at putting people ahead of herself.”

//

“Hey, do you remember Opal’s twenty-fifth birthday party?” Korra asks, reaching forward to turn down the music.

Asami hums, her fingers tapping along the steering wheel. “Was that the underwater theme? I was out of town that year—conference in Tokyo.” 

“No, the one during the Olympics. We watched the closing ceremony at some bar.” Korra holds her breath. She’d spent all of dinner wanting to ask, and now she can’t hold back anymore.

“Oh my god, yeah, Rio?” Asami laughs. “Bolin almost cried when they played the montage of the games.”

“You don’t remember anything else about that night? Like, any of Bo’s friends being weird?” _Or falling asleep on the bar and getting mocked about it for the rest of time?_

“I mean, dancing, mostly,” Asami says. “I couldn’t look at tequila for months after that night.”

Korra breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay. Okay, cool.”

“Wait a second,” Asami says, sounding suspicious. “Why do you want to know what I remember?” 

Korra leans over and presses a kiss to Asami’s cheek, the seat belt digging into her neck as she does. “No reason.”

//

“I know I’m supposed to be talking about the later stuff first and working my way back, but...she was so much larger than life, it seemed like. When we first met, I mean. So confident she was cocky, almost. And it felt like all of that just melted away when she looked at me. It felt like she was tearing down all her walls, just for me.

“It was addicting, how she just commanded the attention of every room she walked into but she got shy holding my hand. Maybe that’s dumb. It’s easy to be romantic about stuff when you meet and fall in love in college.”

//

“Korra, can you bring those boxes in here?”

“Yeah,” Korra calls back, navigating around the mostly packed bedroom. It’s a maze of piled up clothes and miscellaneous objects, but at least some of the boxes have been filled up. She grabs one, the sharpie on the outside telling her it’s filled with winter clothes, and wrangles it through the doorway and down the hall. 

Opal is sitting on the floor in front of the couch, sorting through clothing to decide whether or not she wants to keep or toss them. “Thanks,” she says as Korra drops the box by her. “You can take stuff from this pile, if you want,” she adds. 

“You’re a maniac for moving in together while also planning a wedding,” Korra points out, “but I’m glad to fulfill my groomsmaidly duties.”

Opal huffs out a defense, something about the timing being right, but Korra is only half listening, making her way back to the bedroom. She hates to admit it, but Opal’s gotten less and less of her attention these past few months. It’s both of their faults, really, but Korra wants to take ownership of her mistakes, to try and be better. She likes the feeling of fresh starts, and something about Asami—everything about Asami—makes her want to be better.

The other boxes aren’t filled up the way the last one had been, so Korra grabs some of the junk spread out on the bed and begins to pile it in on top of some scarves. She stops as she grabs a picture frame, her fingers sliding across the glass, and takes a moment to look at it. It’s Opal in college, baby fat still clinging to her face, her arms wrapped around a similarly younger-looking Bolin. Korra smiles and places it in the box. It doesn’t feel like that long ago, when she met Opal, but it’s been years of birthday parties and late night takeout and last minute groupons on the weekends. If she’d known, when they met—

When they met—

Korra frowns, blinking. She reaches up and rubs at one temple. She tries the thought again: when she and Opal had met—

Static. The TV on the wrong setting, black and white and far too loud.

It’s been months and months since Korra’s last had a migraine, and she’d be pissed if one hit right as she’s trying to help her friend out. Her auras have never been like this before, though, so she keeps moving things into a box and hopes for the best. It’s mostly full now, but she takes a stack of papers to cram on the top, barely managing to grab a stray business card as it attempts to flutter to the floor. Or at least, she thinks it’s a business card, but as she goes to shove it in the box, her eyes catch on her own name. Frowning, she holds it up to her face.

_Dear Ms. Beifong_

**_Korra Southgate_ ** _has had_ **_Asami Sato_ ** _erased from her memory. Please never mention their relationship to her again._

_Thank you._

The logo in the corner is for something called _LACUNA INC_ and has an address somewhere in Sherman Oaks. Korra blinks stupidly at it, trying to force the words make sense. She doesn’t manage.

Her eyes stay focused on the card as she stumbles down the hall, reading it over and over again. She stops once she reaches the living room, still staring at it, not managing to focus enough to hear Opal asking about a sweater. It feels as though her head is stuck underwater.

_erased from her memory_

_relationship_

_please never mention_

“Korra?”

She finally tears her eyes away and looks up. Opal is frowning at her, confused. 

“You okay?”

Instead of speaking, Korra holds up the card. 

Opal’s face goes slack. “Oh, fuck.”

//

“Can you run me through the procedure again? Sorry, the science of this is still—well, it’s kind of hard for me to put together. Neuroscience was never my thing. Why is this part necessary?”

“That’s quite alright, Ms. Sato.”

“Asami, please.”

“Asami, then. These sessions are vital in prepping the neural pathways you’ve developed over the years for our equipment. Have you ever, say, smelled something for the first time in a long time and it’s reminded you very specifically of a person or place, or maybe even a moment?”

“Yes, there’s—my mother’s perfume. Sometimes I pass someone wearing it and...yes, I know about that.”

“That mostly has to do with parts of our brain that hold memory and scent being physically close to one another, but is also a good example of how many things live dormant inside our minds until they’re triggered by something. Remembering can be a surprise. Obviously, that’s a problem with our offered product.”

“Right.”

“The early experimentation with this kind of memory adaptation showed mostly effective, but had some of those minor issues. Once these sessions were implemented as a necessary part of the procedure, those issues disappeared.”

“So, they’re not just to...ensure that you want to proceed with it all?”

“No, they’re not designed to do that. Although, in my experience, they do that as well. Are you feeling doubts?”

“Of course. Of course I am. How could I not be?”

//

Korra knows that Opal is expecting her to go right to Bolin, but she can’t handle seeing him just yet. Her best friend through it all, she thought.

She thought.

It’s dangerous to be driving her state, no doubt, everything blurry from the tears building up in her eyes and leaking down her cheeks in steady streams, but any state Korra drives in is a kind of dangerous one. Thinking of what she knows of Asami—of her blueprints of car engines hanging on the walls of her apartment, of what Korra knows of her work—she wonders if that was ever a joke between them.

No, she doesn’t go to Bolin.

After she pounds on his door for a solid twenty seconds, Mako pulls open the door sharply. “What?” he grumbles, his hair a mess and a faint pink line on one cheek. When he registers the state Korra’s in, his eyes go wide. “Korra. Holy sh—are you okay? Come in,” he insists, moving out of the way.

She walks in numbly. His studio is as neat as ever, though she can’t remember the last time she was actually here. 

She wonders what else she can’t remember.

Mako has barely closed the door when she turns to face him in the dim light of his entryway. 

“Are you okay?” Mako asks again. “You’re scaring me.”

Korra hands him the card she found at Opal’s. It gets the reaction she wanted; she knew that Opal would have called Bolin, that he would be prepared for her arrival. She knew Mako wouldn’t be, and the way the color disappears from his face is satisfying, in a sick way.

His spine straightens. He hands the card back before crossing his arms. On Mako, it never manages to look defensive. Korra knows him too well, how he tries to physically prepare himself for difficult conversations. “I’m surprised you didn’t go to Bo,” he says.

Korra shakes her head and tries to breathe through her fury. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

She sighs. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mako, but you’re a shit liar. We always had that in common.”

“Thank you?”

“We haven’t talked in months,” she says, forcing eye contact. “Why is that?”

He holds her gaze. “You know why, Korra.”

She swallows hard. It doesn’t make the nausea go away. “Was I first?”

His eyebrows push together. “Sorry?”

Korra holds up the card again. “Was I first?” she repeats.

Mako’s forehead smoothes out, but he doesn’t look more at ease. “No,” he says softly, just above a whisper. “No, you weren’t first.”

Now that she’s gaining speed, Korra can’t take her foot off the gas. Her coaches used to say that’s what made her such a good swimmer. “She went first. And I followed?”

His head jerks, the tiniest nod. “That’s what upset me most about it all,” he tells her.

“What is?”

Mako sighs. “In all her brilliance, Asami should’ve known that you were always going to follow her. It never made sense to any of us.”

Korra feels cold all over. “You don’t know why?”

“We knew you had a fight. Bolin said, after...well, he said that you were staying with Tenzin for a bit, but he only found that out after we all got the card sent to us.” He gestures to the one in Korra’s hand. “Not that card. Asami’s. You fell off the map for a week or so and then we got yours.”

Korra wipes angrily at her own face. Her hand comes away wet. “I—I don’t…”

Mako takes a cautious step closer. “Can I get you a glass of water, Korra?”

She nods. He rests a hand on her shoulder for a second as he passes her on his way to the kitchen, but she hardly feels it. Seeing him fill up a cup with tap water is like watching a movie on mute, but she reaches out to accept it and takes a sip anyway, even though she never drinks tap water at home. 

Eventually, her senses stop feeling so shaky. “Since college?” she asks.

Mako runs a hand through his hair and leans back against the counter. “Yeah. After you got hurt. Junior year, I think? You met during some sorority charity thing.”

Korra thinks back to their first—well, not first—conversation in Carpinteria and almost laughs. “And you don’t know what we fought about?”

“No. I was thinking about asking you, but it felt like a dick thing to ask, and you’ve—”

“—called you a dick enough times for a lifetime, I know,” Korra finishes. The wounds of their dramatic, teenage breakup have long since healed and turned into funny stories. 

“Yeah,” Mako says lamely. “And then it was too late to ask. If Bo knows, he’s never said—”

“It was in January, wasn’t it?” Korra interrupts. “Right after New Year’s. That’s when we...”

Mako’s head pulls back in surprise. “Yeah, it was. How did you know?”

Korra laughs, a bitter and ugly sound. “It makes sense. The new apartment, the way Naga reacted when she met Asami.” She shakes her head. “Or was reunited with Asami, I guess. Fuck.” She brings the half-full glass of water up and closes her eyes, presses it against one in hopes that the coldness will make them ache less. It doesn’t work. Against her better judgement, she asks, “do you have any pictures? From before?”

“We were supposed to get rid of them.”

“I know. That’s not what I asked.”

Mako sighs. Korra opens her eyes to see him pull out his phone. “Yeah, I’ve got some.”

“For a cop, you’re shit at following orders,” Korra tells him.

He doesn’t respond to the barb. Instead, he passes his phone over. “The company did an insanely thorough job going through our social media accounts, but I had this saved on my phone. It’s from your birthday last year.”

Korra puts the glass of water down and holds the phone in both hands. It’s all of them, the whole group, but Korra focuses on herself, right in the middle. Behind her is Asami, new and familiar all at once, her arms wrapped around the younger Korra’s shoulders. “We look happy,” she mumbles. 

“You were,” Mako confirms. 

Korra knows the smell of Asami’s hair, the way she twirls it around one finger when she reads. She knows Asami’s proclivity for the word _fuck_ and her favorite song to kiss to. She knows how she laughs when she doesn’t care who’s listening and the gentle way she cleaned Naga’s paws after a walk in some rare LA rain. She knows a whole list of reasons why she’s already in love with Asami Sato and yet she doesn’t know anything about her at all.

Does it count if Asami doesn’t know either?

Numbly, Korra hands Mako back his phone. 

//

“I think that’s almost everything we need, Asami.”

“Almost?”

“You never went over the fight that led you to us. The reason you’re here.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why is that?”

“This is for neural pathways, right? Making sure that they’re well worn and easily identifiable?”

“Yes, that’s the primary purpose.”

“Well, neural pathways won’t be an issue. I haven’t stopped thinking about it for a second since it happened.”

“Nevertheless, it can help to say it aloud.”

“Thank you for the advice, but nothing can help this. That’s why I’ve come to you. I know myself perfectly well.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. The only person I know better is Korra.”

“Is that why you want to erase her?”

“I don’t want to erase her.”

“Sorry, I—have you changed your mind, Asami?”

“No.”

“But you don’t want to erase Korra from your memory.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“What I want doesn’t matter much here, Doctor.”

“It’s my understanding that my patient’s wants are the primary focus of this procedure.”

“That’s probably true, in the broad sense, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that statistics can be misleading. Your diploma over there says you graduated from MIT. You should know that there are always outliers.”

“Why are you here, Asami? Truly?”

“The only way to make Korra do this is if I do it first.”

“You...I’m sorry. You’re doing this so that she will?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t know definitively that she’ll take this step.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Definitively?”

“Yes. She’s stubborn. She—she won’t move on. She’s not the type. Her mind is made up on me. I can’t logic her out of her decisions; that’s never worked on her and it never will. God knows I’ve tried.”

“Asami, you should know that I do my very best to refrain from inflicting my opinion into my client’s cases, but—”

“Then do your very best, Doctor, and refrain.”

“You said you don’t _want_ to do this, Asami. I’m just trying to do my job thoroughly.”

“Of course I don’t want to do this. She’s—Korra’s the…she’s the love of my life. I can’t let her stay with me when I know she can be happier with...well, I know she can be happier. She just won’t hear it from me.”

“You don’t trust her to know her own emotions?”

“You don’t understand: I go to work early and I stay late. I forget dates and when it’s my turn to do laundry or take out the trash or clean the bathroom. I’m not the kind of person who makes a good life partner, no matter how she might want me. I see the look on her face when I forget, and that can’t be her future. I won’t let it be. Have you ever had to watch someone you love do something that makes them unhappy, day after day? It’s unbearable. I'm so...I'm so tired. All the time. I can't watch her be unhappy anymore.”

“Can I give you my professional opinion?”

“I don’t think I can keep you from doing so.”

“You don’t need this procedure, Asami. I think you’re making a mistake.”

//

Asami opens her door with a smile. It fades a bit when she gets a look at the expression on Korra’s face, and by the time they’ve gone inside and Korra has handed her the card, it’s gone entirely.

Korra stands on the other side of the room, watching warily as Asami holds her hand in her hands, eyes closed. “You found this today?”

Korra nods, but Asami’s eyes are still shut, so she makes a vague hum of agreement as well. 

“At Opal’s?” She opens her eyes and looks right at Korra as she nods, this time. “And then you came right here?”

“No, I…” Korra shrugs. “I went to Mako’s actually.”

Asami looks away, back down at the card that’s still in her hand. “What did you find out?”

“That we started dating in college,” Korra starts. “That we were really happy and had some kind of fight. That you, um…” she gestures to her own head. “You did it first.”

Asami blows out a long breath. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Asami’s fingernails are a deep, dark red this week. Korra doesn’t know why that’s what her brain focuses on. 

“It makes sense,” Asami finally says. “Was it—I mean...January, right? That’s when I…”

“That’s what Mako said,” Korra mutters. “It adds up for me, too.”

“I—we...” Asami flounders. She’s rarely lost for words, and it’s not a sight that Korra enjoys. “Where do we go from here?”

It’s the question Korra knew was coming, but she’s still unprepared for it. “I don’t think,” she starts, oh so carefully, “that it necessarily has to change anything.”

Asami stands abruptly. “What?”

Korra takes a step forward despite the almost aggressive stance Asami has taken. _“We’re_ fine, we’re the most solid relationship I’ve ever...” the words trail off awkwardly, but she finishes the thought anyway: “the most solid relationship that I remember.”

“Don’t you get it?” Asami asks, her eyes shiny. “We’ve already broken up. That’s a _fact_ , that's—this is evidence, Korra. Data collected. We already know that this won’t work.”

“No, we don’t,” Korra insists. “I’m in love with you, Asami.”

“I chose to forget you,” Asami hisses. “I chose to _erase_ you. I can’t even understand how much we’d have to not work for me to do that.”

Korra crosses her arms. “We don’t _know_ anything,” she says. 

“Exactly.” Asami wipes at her cheek, her movements choppy and harsh. 

“So we have a clean slate,” Korra persists, her voice soft. “Tell me you don’t feel this.”

Asami looks up, clenching her jaw.

“Asami,” Korra says imploringly. “Asami, I know you feel this too.” After a moment, her voice considerably softer, she says, “you said you felt it too.”

“The definition of insanity is the same thing over and over and expecting a different result,” Asami tells her. “How is this any different?”

“It is,” Korra promises. “We are.”

Asami looks back at her again, this time letting the tear make its way down her cheek. “I’m scared,” she whispers.

  
Korra smiles weakly. “Me too,” she says, “but I want to try.” Cautiously, she takes a step closer. “I think you choosing to—to do this,” Korra stutters out, “it has a meaning that we don’t quite understand, because...well, you’re brilliant, Asami. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. I’ve never seen anyone beat you at pai sho, because you’re always six steps ahead.”

“If I was six steps ahead this never would’ve happened,” Asami insists. 

“I think you were, though,” Korra says. “I think that big, beautiful brain of yours had figured something out. About me, about us, I don’t know. You don’t know either, and maybe we never will, but you…” Korra clears her throat. “You broke your own heart. You broke _my_ heart, and I know I don’t know you, Asami, but I _do._ I _know_ you. You would never do this to someone you love.”

“But I _did,”_ Asami chokes out. “I did that to you.”

Korra nods. “Yeah. You did.” She nods again, softer this time. “And I think it’s an insult to your intelligence to say that you wouldn’t know how much that would hurt me.” 

Asami’s lip trembles ferociously. “So I _would_ do that to someone I love. You’re proof of that.”

“No, Asami,” Korra breathes out. “I think you jumped first to make me follow.”

“What?”

“I think you got in your head about something. I think something went wrong and you didn’t know how to fix it. I think you knew I was right for you.”

Asami wipes at her cheeks, but it doesn’t do anything to stem the flood of tears still pouring down her face. “Why the fuck would I do this if I thought that?”

“I think you thought that _you_ weren’t right for _me.”_ Korra lets her sit with that for a second, and then, “and I think you were dead fucking wrong, Asami. 

Asami sniffles, her hand coming up to swipe away the tears that make it to her chin, her movements gentle this time, softer.

“Don’t you see?” Korra asks. “This is our second chance. I'm just...” She reaches a hand out. "I'm just asking you to jump with me, this time."

Asami looks at her hand, then up at her face. After taking a deep breath, she drops the card and reaches out to take Korra's hand.

//

**Coda**

//

Asami opens her eyes. She’s driving her car, her left hand loosely gripping the steering wheel as she cruises along 101 N. The music on the radio transitions into “Hotline Bling,” and there’s a loud groan to her right.

Asami looks over in time to see Korra’s hand—and because of the way their fingers are tangled together, her own—aggressively change the station. Korra’s hand, all bitten down fingernails and dry palms, is warm in her own. Korra never moisturizes her hands.  
  


What a stupid thing to be upset about forgetting.

“Hate that fuckin’ song,” Korra muttters.

The first tear leaks down Asami’s cheek. Or, the first tear Asami _remembers_ leaks down her cheek. The shirt she’s wearing, Korra’s sunglasses—what year is this? 2015? Years, then, already gone.

She knows the instructions given to her: live the memories out as close as she can to her memories, and then they’ll be gone. Go with the flow until the tide recedes. The technician told her they’d save the Lacuna INC sessions for last, so she wouldn’t get confused.

Another tear, this time on the other cheek.

Korra lifts their clasped hands to her mouth and presses a kiss to Asami’s fingers, thoughtless and affectionate. 

Asami yanks the car over into an exit at the last second.

_“Whoa,_ Asami,” Korra yelps. “What the fuck? Are you cry—baby, what’s wrong?” Her other hand comes up to wrap itself around Asami’s still bare knuckles.

Logically, Asami knows that this isn’t Korra; this is just her perception of Korra, so everything this Korra says is what Asami _thinks_ Korra would say, not what she might actually say. Still—she has to ask. She has to ask, and this might very well be her last chance. She pulls over the first chance she gets and shifts the car into park.

“Asami?” Korra asks.

“What would you do,” Asami starts, her voice carefully controlled, “if I tried to break up with you?”

“What? Are you—are you serious?” Instead of letting go, she just holds onto Asami’s hand tighter. “This is hypothetical. Right?” The radio blares. “Right, Asami?”

“You know this was the trip I knew you were the love of my life?” Asami asks, even though she’s never told anyone that before. “One weekend in Santa Barbara, and I spent half of it working, but I still knew.”

Korra takes a deep breath, looking calmer. “You’re the love of my life, too,” she says.

Asami doesn’t remember the fight, but she remembers talking about it to the doctor at Lacuna, and that’s more than enough for her to go on. She understands herself well enough. This is purely guesswork, but: "if I stopped going to Dr. Yung, what do you think would happen?”

“Asami, you’ve lost me,” Korra tells her, pressing another kiss to her fingertips. A little wrinkle between her eyebrows appears, usually present when Asami starts talking about thermodynamics or something. “You like Dr. Yung, I thought. Do you want to change therapists?”

“No,” Asami whispers. “Just—what do you think would happen?”

Korra blows out a long sigh. “Well, I think you’d have more trouble working through your emotions by yourself. That big, wrinkly brain of yours does better with calculus.”

Asami nods, holding tight to Korra’s hands. “And if—” Her voice cracks, and she starts again, “if I stopped taking my antidepressants? Or if they stopped working as effectively?”

That makes Korra freeze. “Asami.” She sounds scared. “Why did you pull over?” She looks out the window, then, “are you taking us to Carpinteria? I thought your conference started at noon.” The clock on the dashboard says it’s almost 11. Asami has never cared less about being on time.

Sure enough, the exit she’d taken has spit them out on the outskirts of her mother’s favorite little beach town, which she had only ever shared with Korra. “Do you think I might convince myself that you could only be happy without me?”

Korra unbuckles her seatbelt and stretches herself into Asami’s space. “Asami. Look at me.”

Asami looks. Her memory is good; Korra’s eyes are a perfect blue. She smells like Old Spice deodorant and their shared laundry detergent. It’s practically an Asami-aphrodisiac, but it just makes more tears well up in her eyes.

“I would never let you think that, Asami,” Korra insists, pressing a gentle kiss to the apple of her cheek.

And despite what she knows, Asami believes her.

“If you knew what I’m doing,” she sobs, “you’d never forgive me.”

“Oh, ‘Sami,” Korra says, sounding heartbroken. “Of course I would.”

“I thought if I changed the memory,” Asami says, finally breaking and pulling Korra awkwardly into her lap, “that I might still remember. If I change what happened, I might get to keep this, after.” She buries her face in Korra’s shirt, not caring about ruining it with her running makeup.

One of Korra’s hands runs through her hair. “We can stay here as long as you want,” she breathes into Asami’s ear.

“Because you're not real. It won’t last.”

“We will,” Korra promises. “We'll last. Just _try_ and keep me away.”

“Okay. Okay. I’m going to remember this,” Asami says, mostly trying to convince herself. “You, and me, just outside of Santa Barbara.”

“With a steering wheel fucking up my back.” Korra adds.

The laugh bursts out of Asami’s chest, clear and surprised. “With a steering wheel fucking up your back,” she agrees.

Korra pulls back as much as she can in the limited room and wipes her thumbs under Asami’s eyes. Slowly, carefully, she leans in and kisses Asami’s lipstick messy. “After this,” she whispers into the sliver of space between them, “meet me on the beach.”

Asami nods and kisses her again. Korra could ask her anything and she’d agree. She wraps her arms around Korra’s waist, taking the sunglasses from her back pocket and flinging them over to the passenger seat. “Will you be there?” she asks against insistent lips.

“I wouldn't miss it,” Korra vows. “Not for the world.”

//

Korra finds herself on the beach. 

She knows that’s where she is before she opens her eyes; it’s obvious from the salt and the heat on her thighs and the waves tumbling in her ears. She has to squint past the glare of the sun off the water once she blinks her eyes open, but the faint outline of the Channel Islands soon becomes visible in the distance, little pinprick oil rigs spaced apart on the horizon. Her whole body goes cold.

“ _No_ ,” she says, her voice already thick. It’s half a demand and half a plea. “No, you can’t take this one.”

The sand is hot between her toes, under her heel. A little girl splashes in the small waves a few dozen feet away, her boogie board trailing behind her like a dog on a leash. Korra tries to think—where was she before this? What priceless moment is gone now, scrubbed out of her brain with steel wool?

She can’t remember.

“Can’t take what, Korra?”

Asami is sitting next to her on a striped green beach towel, wearing an Angels hat and that pair of crazy reflective blue sunglasses that she stole from Korra’s bedside table. Her knees are pulled up to her chest, her chin resting on one as she watches Korra watch the little girl. She looks lazy and relaxed and so so _so_ happy. 

Korra looks at her and knows— _how many times has she known already?_ —that she’s made the biggest mistake of her life.

“Asami,” she gasps out, her voice a tiny and broken sound. “I’m so sorry.” The apology falls out of her like gravity’s commanded it. Korra doesn’t if that's what went wrong, if she hadn’t been able to say it. She wants to cover her bases now, even though it can't matter all that much at this point.

“Sorry for what?” Asami asks her, looking confused. She takes off the sunglasses, dropping them carelessly into the sand, but her eyes are so bright when they squint at Korra. 

“I don’t know,” Korra manages. It’s the truth—she doesn’t anymore. It’s one of the gaping holes of her swiss cheese memory. “I’m erasing you,” she continues, even though _sorry_ doesn’t communicate nearly enough. “I’ll live this memory and then it’ll be gone. You’ll be gone.”

Asami’s hand comes to rest on her knee, pale against rich brown. “I’m right here,” she says. 

Korra’s more than lost; Asami has never been farther away. She doesn’t _want_ to let go of this moment, or this place, or this person. Their day trips up north, and sometimes a rare long weekend, had always been so earnestly romantic—like a vision her teenage self had after sneaking back in from a party, beer on her breath and campfire smoke clinging to her clothes, when she would lay there, the world spinning on and on, stuck seeing the repeating sets of all of her friends and classmates, gangly and tall boys matched perfectly to girls in crop tops that made Korra burn. Her little 2AM secret, the feeling of being warm and loved—2,500 miles and a lifetime later, she’s throwing it away. She’s throwing away the way Asami would go all soft around the edges when Korra jumped at the chance to go to a stretch of beach she’d never be able to surf, because it meant they’d spend the whole time in the sand together. It meant a whole day of rambling conversations and laughing and tacos from that shack by the train tracks that seemed to sell everything. Even if they went in July and the beach was packed it always felt like it was just them, giggling as they tried to wipe the tar from the bottoms of their feet. She’s throwing away the drive home, with blasting AC and early signs of a sunburn setting in and Asami tangling their fingers together. She’s throwing away the bag of chocolate from the candy store in town that Asami hoards when they get back, and how she always waits until Korra’s finished her supply before magically summoning more for her. She’s throwing away being known, really and truly _known_ , and being loved despite of it, _because_ of it.

She’s throwing away her life, just because Asami did it first.

“I can’t let go of this,” she begs, not sure who to. “Please. Not this one. I don’t want to forget.”

“So tell me,” Asami answers. “I’ll remember for both of us.”

“You’re not real,” Korra whispers. This beach has no riptide, but she might as well be getting pulled along in one. No matter how hard she digs her heels into the sand, it sinks through the hourglass just the same. “You’re just a memory.”

Asami strokes Korra’s hair back from where it’s falling in her face. “Memories are real.”

“If I tell you it will disappear.” Korra says, finally feeling one of the tears that have been building in her eyes slide down her cheek, “and it’s too beautiful to forget.”

“One of us should remember it,” Asami agrees. Her hand settles on Korra’s cheek and it’s warm, so incredibly warm. It’s warm like sleeping in on a Saturday and shared shower before bed. It’s warm right down to Korra’s core. 

Korra takes a deep breath and sniffles pathetically. Try as she might, she can’t fight the tide. One of them _should_ remember it, but Korra’s already signed on the dotted line and there’s no going back. “We were watching that little girl,” she starts weakly, “and I said that our kid would be boogie boarding here before they could walk.”

“What did I say?” Asami asks.

Korra’s lip trembles and Asami’s thumb swipes across it, soothing. The gesture is tiny, thoughtless even, but it makes Korra ache. “That I’d make a hot surfing instructor.” She smiles, even as the next sentence breaks her down all over again. “You said you wanted to get married on the beach.” As she says it, the mist from the mountains seems to wash over the sand, encroaching on where they sit, still in a spotlight of perfect sunshine and warmth.

“That’s not what I said,” Asami responds softly, her hand still so gentle.

Korra’s crying harder now, as everything around them fades, like saturation slowly leached out of a photo. “No,” she admits. “It’s not.” She can’t bring herself to say the actual words—she wants to hold onto them, bury them so deep that no one will ever be able to pry them away. She thinks there might be some holes around her heart just big enough to hide them. 

Asami leans in and kisses her slowly, demanding Korra’s full attention, just like she had on that afternoon at the world’s safest beach. “I said I wanted to marry _you_ on the beach,” she whispers against Korra’s lips.

Korra opens her eyes, but the beach has turned gray and cold. Asami is gone, faded into the mist, and all that’s left besides Korra is a pair of blue reflective sunglasses, half buried in the sand.

..

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry this ending isnt happier in my mind it was but then i wrote it and . well. 
> 
> if u would like chat abt the way korrasami has ruined my life for six years or bemoan the lack of a korrasami renaissance that we all deserve, hmu on twitter @ wonkeydonkey69


End file.
